Charlie Kirk has now been turned into a national hero, given what amounted to a state funeral, and has also been effectively canonized by Bishops Barron and Doyle. He was racist, misogynist, and an open white Christian nationalist who opposed separation of church and state. He felt the Constitution could be disregarded when needed. He was often anti- Jewish (in spite of supporting Israel - I guess for him Israel was the lesser of the evils) and anti- Muslim in his rhetoric. All in all, he did not promote Jesus’s teachings in the gospels. Where is our country headed now? Are we reliving in our own country the events that took place in Europe in the 1930s? How will Americans respond?
I recently saw a story somewhere (not sure of where) that Trump increased his share of votes of white Catholic women in 2024. Evangelicals, men and women, have been the backbone of his religious support, joined by white Catholics. And now, even more of the white Catholics supporting MAGA are women.
Trump’s actions since January have raised concerns by rational observers, including noted historians of 20th century European history, that this administration is slowly implementing fascism, step by step - Project 2025. As we know, most German christians, including most German Catholics, supported Hitler. Many have wondered how these every-Sunday-at-mass, “good” Catholics and other church-going christians could do this. I have linked to an article about why “good” Christian women supported Nazism.
My question - looking at history and at the current state of our country - does institutional religion actually bring about moral transformation? Why do the majority of Sunday church- going American Christians (other than mainline Protestants) literally bend a knee to people like Kirk and Trump? It’s pretty clear that the gospel is not being heard in most American churches. Is it even being taught? Or is church attendance just about a feel- righteous experience and having the social support of a community? Jack has often cited the studies that indicate that the main benefit of church belonging is social support from a community, with churches taking the place of Lions Club and bowling leagues.
Comments? Are we headed to an American version of fascism supported by “christians”?
Does institutional religion help or hurt? American Christianity right now seems to be pretty harmful, leading people away from the Gospel messages, not towards embracing them.
Should we pray that the non-christians and the Nones will save us?
https://www.christiancentury.org/critical-essay/good-white-christian-women-nazi-germany
I don't see our country as a direct parallel to Hitler's Germany in the 1930s, even though there are similarities. Because the circumstances that led to Hitler's Germany were very different. They had just lost a world war, and were saddled with crippling reparations. Their economy was in the toilet. The people felt they had nothing left to lose. Trump is trying his shambolic best to put our economy in the toilet, but it isn't there yet.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Christian nationalism is a perversion of Christianity, a worshipping of power as a false god. It's an easy trap to fall into, we get some things we want if we just ignore some other things. Maga is a type of heresy
White Christian women who are Maga supporters are there for the same reasons anyone else is Maga, because it gets them things they want (or promises things they want, it's a bait and switch con).
Not all Christians and Catholics are Maga, and they're the ones who will have to try to drag the country back to sanity.
I would add that part of the power of Maga is demonizing Democrats and anyone to the left of Trump as radioactive.
DeleteIt’s not an exact parallel. But the increasing examples of authoritarianism are disturbing. There is an interesting piece at NCRonline that taught me a new word - anocracy.
DeleteWhat interests me about the Christian Century article is that “Christians” were able to support an evil regime without much hesitation. And that Christian women were fully on board. I see strong parallels in this country with the white evangelicals and white Catholics, including the discouraging report that white Catholic women are even more in the MAGA camp than previously, just as the German women learned to put aside christian teachings in favor of personal convenience for them and their families.
So back to my question - institutional Christianity failed to stop people from supporting the evil that was Nazism. It has failed to teach white evangelicals and white Catholics that supporting MAGA is not following Christs teachings.
So - is organized religion anything more than a feel good personal exercise, or only a sham that doesn’t actually convince people to fight an evil.. Jim has frequently mentioned that they have to walk on eggshells to avoid offending MAGA folk in the congregation. That too is not following Jesus’s example. He came to teach us how to live, and he made a whole lot of people uncomfortable. So they had him killed. If Christian leaders are afraid to teach the truth, then why bother having churches?
https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/united-states-toppling-empire
I would feel alienated if I were a member of a congregation where the clergy were overtly Maga in their preaching. I imagine there are a lot of people who would equally be alienated if they were getting sermons calling out the right wing Republicans. As it is, we live in an uneasy truce where we avoid politics in church, and try and focus on the Word and Sacrament. We have to draw our own conclusions to an extent. That isn't altogether a bad thing. If we make ourselves open to the teachings of Jesus we arrive at the right place. I know that's not what you want to hear. But I don't think overtly political sermons convince anyone.
DeleteAnd yes, I do think there is a purpose in organized religion. Even if we're not perfect Christians, I think it's better to come together and put up with one another rather than to sort out into our comfort zones.
But - teaching the gospel isn’t political. It IS the Word. I’m not suggesting preaching politics but the gospel. So MAGA folk shouldn’t be offended, right? But apparently they often are. Which means that the gospels may not actually be taught in many churches. Organized Christianity failed badly in Germany. It seems to be failing here also. So why church?
Delete"Do why church?" I don't know that I can answer that, except for the responsorial Psalm for Mass this evening. "Let us go rejoicing, to the house of the Lord." Worship for its own sake, to praise God as a community.
Delete"But - teaching the gospel isn’t political. It IS the Word."
DeleteIt's been my experience that most Americans believe some version of this statement. I think the way they think of it is: religion is one thing; politics is another.
There are people in our parish who probably aren't MAGA but who still object to political or policy implications of the Gospel being introduced into the homily. I think part of it is psychological: they don't come to mass looking for conflict and controversy. They want comfort and hope. Preaching that veers too near to immigration or abortion or some other divisive topic jangles their nerves.
The objection to nerve-jangling doesn't have to be rooted in politics. One time, we had a guest preacher on Father's Day who talked about growing up in a household with a deeply flawed father. People hated it. It wasn't what they were looking for on Father's Day.
" institutional Christianity failed to stop people from supporting the evil that was Nazism. It has failed to teach white evangelicals and white Catholics that supporting MAGA is not following Christs teachings."
DeleteWhat if they don't agree that supporting MAGA is not following Christ's teachings? What if they don't accept your premise that MAGA is antithetical to Christianity? I'm not MAGA, but I'm pretty sure they'd respond that all of your premises are wrong, and our inability to see it says more about us than them. (That's not me talking, it's me supposing what a MAGA person would say.)
I’m quite sure those German women described in the article who supported the Nazis would say that they followed the gospels . Just because MAGA claims that they follow the gospels doesn’t mean they do, any more than the Christians in Germany did.
DeleteMAGA beliefs don’t align with the gospel- Matthew 25,, or the Beatitudes, or love thy neighbor, or Welcome the stranger, or “Render to Caesar” (taxes are intrinsically evil to them), or the Good Samaritan etc. No preferential option for the poor. Increasingly no religious freedom, but Christian nationalism. Jesus never advocated that Jews run the Roman Empire, at least as I recall. He fraternized with non- Jews, scandalizing many Jews. We see this rejection of other religions in the US with trumps attacks on Muslims. I have personally heard evangelicals (MAGA) call all Muslims evil. Catholic Social teaching does teach the gospels. Unfortunately few Catholics in the pews ever hear it. The bishops ignore it except for immigration. Then “good” Catholic JDVance says what MAGA thinks - they only support immigrants because they need to fill the pews and the bank accounts.
So the white folk in the Catholic pews apparently don’t hear the church on immigration or the preferential option for the poor. Apparently pastors are afraid to preach about Catholic social justice teachings. Maybe because the bishops speak far more softly when it comes to social justice than they do when it comes to abortion? I read somewhere that some Catholics complain after mass about readings and homilies on Matthew 25:31-46 as being political. I learned just yesterday that Kirk thought “ empathy “ is bad, and after reading some online comments and researching the topic, I found out that there is a whole MAGA movement now denouncing “empathy”. A MAGA woman wrote a book called “Toxic Empathy “ . I did know that musk had condemned “ empathy” but didn't realize until yesterday that this is a common tenet now of MAGA. So if you feel a tug of empathy at seeing a video of a masked ICE agent pulling a terrified child out of his fathers arms as agents roughly handcuff and toss the father into an unmarked van it’s “ toxic” empathy. Photos of a mother weeping with a listless skin and bones child in her arms in Gaza might create “ toxic”:empathy. Reports of deaths due to the cut- off of humanitarian aid should be suppressed because people might feel “ toxic” empathy. They focus on LGBTQ issues, female submission, abortion etc just as the bishops do - none of which are even mentioned by Jesus. In the gospels, Jesus exhibited empathy and compassion. Those are not virtues to MAGA, but vices apparently.
So, I still see no evidence that my premise is wrong - that most (not all) organized Christian religion is failing to teach the gospels today just as it failed to do in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.
The American bishops undermined Francis’s efforts to return the focus to the gospels and the preferential option for the poor. Sadly, while the church in Europe is seeing some recent growth in attendance, it’s again pretty much only the right wingers. It’s not cause for celebration.
Will Leo continue Francis’s focus or will he back off? The American church is the biggest source of money for the universal church. Money seems to be the focus of everything these days, including in the churches. Focusing on Social Justice doesn’t bring in the big bucks.
David French had a good piece in the NYT today:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/opinion/erika-kirk-charlie-trump-miller.html
It’s almost as if cognitive dissonance has become a drug. I wonder if people get high on it. First the good feeling from an act of Christian forgiveness and then the conversion into anger which makes one feel alive and liberated from tge constraints of morality. I think we’re seeing the buildup to a genocidal paroxysm like in Palestine. The idea that getting rid of a certain cohort of people will bring on utopia. I, for one, don’t intend to be marched peacefully to the cattle cars. Question to myself: Will you be alive in two years putting aside natural causes? My answer: I really don’t know but I’m less sure than ever.
DeleteI know that people can get high on adrenaline, and anger produces adrenaline.
DeleteIn other news “ The General Services Administration has given the employees — who managed government workspaces — until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.
ReplyDeleteThose who accept must report for duty Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs — passed along to taxpayers — to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire.
“Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”
Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast.”
GSA is not alone. This situation is true of many agencies. Employees paid but not working for months. Agencies failing in their duties due to understaffing and mismanagement with DOGE people in charge who sometimes literally didn’t even know what the agency did. I have read that the total cost of the DOGE rampage is in the billions, rather than saving billions. All totally predictable.
We are now in the "finding out" stage of "eff around and find out". Yes, totally predictable. I hope the fiscal hawks who voted for Trump because of the deficit are paying attention. It will need to be brought to their attention.
DeleteI found these remarks by Marco Rubio in his tribute to Charlie Kirk to be strange.
ReplyDelete. . . Understand where we were at that time in our history. Understand where we are still today in many places.
Where young Americans are actively told that everything that they were taught, that all the foundations that made our society and our civilization so grand, they were all wrong. They were all evil. That marriage is oppressive. That children are a burden. That America is a source of evil, not of good in the world. And here was this voice that inspired a movement in which young Americans were told, that is not true.
The highest calling we are called to is to be in a successful marriage and to raise productive children. And a movement that taught them that ours was not a great country, but the greatest, most exceptional nation that has ever existed in the history of all of mankind. And that it's worth fighting for. It's worth defending. It's worth preserving. And it's worth passing on to the next generation.
I understand that Rubio is a Catholic, and I wonder when they met if he told Pope Leo XIV that getting married and having children is the highest calling. Also, as I understand it, Catholicism does not look too kindly on American Exceptionalism.
The delusion in these statements by Rubio and Trump and the others is an hysterical manic reaction to a real thing. We are a falling empire. It is hard to accept but it is the truth. If we cannot accept that fact in our consciousness, we will have no chance of dealing with it or ameliorating the domestic effects. We, along with our axis-of-evil partner Israel, have become a pariah nation. And we are dragging Europe along with us into irrelevancy. Western civilization, at the governmental level for sure, is losing relevance. I see hope in the demonstrations against genocide in Italy, which seem to dwarf ours. And they take concrete measures like strikes and blocking shipments to Israel.
Delete"...I wonder when they met if he told Pope Leo XIV that getting married and having children is the highest calling."
DeleteThat would also be news to a whole bunch of canonized saints. Not to mention Jesus Christ himself.
I think much of what was said at that very strange funeral and afterwards was performative. I wonder if many of the people making outrageous statements even believe what they were saying themselves.
Re: "The highest calling we are called to is to be in a successful marriage and to raise productive children." That may be an Evangelical article of faith (I'm not certain). It's not precisely what the church teaches. The traditional Catholic teaching is that the priesthood or religious life are the highest callings. That was the tradition that my parents grew up in. It's why having a priest or a nun in the family was (and still is!) such a source of pride. In some ways, I think marriage was viewed as a sort of practical concession to human sinfulness by regulating the human urge to have sex. Not that it was all sin; marriage was (and is) a sacrament. The sacrament of marriage transformed the animal urges most of us have into something holy.
DeleteVatican II may have attenuated that view that the priesthood or religious life are the more exalted paths of human life, by extolling what was good and holy about married life and family life. It seemed to suggest that the celibate holy orders or religious life, and the sexually active/reproductive married life, are alternative and coequal branches for living out our lives.
But that newer view lives in tension with the older view that the priesthood or religious life are better and holier. I don't think the Catholic church has resolved the question.
Now - for those of us who have chosen the life of marriage and children, Rubio is more or less echoing Catholic teaching: that reproduction is intrinsic to marriage, and we should have a bias toward having more rather than fewer children; and we parents should live lives of giving and sacrifice for the well-being of our children. Although Rubio doesn't say so in the quote offered above, he could have added that policies such as subsidized abortion, subsidized birth control, easy divorce, gay marriage - i.e. much of the Democratic platform as it has developed since the 1970s - are antithetical to these core values.
I don't know much about Charlie Kirk, but I'm given to understand that his culture-warrior persona was to stand athwart these relatively recent American cultural and political developments and say, These things are sinful. There is a different and better way. It shouldn't be surprising that he had many admirers among Evangelicals and Catholics. He was articulating boilerplate, traditional Christian beliefs. Apparently, he had the nerve to say them out loud.
Umm, yeah but he said a whole bunch of other things out loud. We can uphold our own beliefs and still uphold the belief that LBTQ+ people are human beings who have the right to live their lives without harassment and persecution. And the things he said about black women were awful, indeed about any blacks were awful (something he said about not trusting a black airlines pilot) basically that any of them were DEI hires. I could go on but I won't. None of it is a secret, because he put it all out there.
DeleteIf it's basic Christian belief, it's a heavily redacted and corrupted version.
Wonder what the evangelical Catholics making statements similar to Rubio's thought of Sunday's reading from the prophet Amos.
DeleteJim, Kirk said a lot of things out loud, including hateful rhetoric.
DeleteThe church’s elevation of virginity and celibacy is one of the worst legacies of the ancient church. It has caused so much damage, and it’s based on the belief that women are not only inferior to men but the “cause” of “ original sin”. That’s why the theology developed to turn Mary, (ever virgin in spite of references to her other children) into the new Eve. Jesus’s mother wouldn’t be good enough if she was defiled by marital lovemaking. Eve was a “temptress”, and all her daughters too throughout history,, according to this theology. So Jesus was the new Adam and Mary the new, unsullied, Eve. Virginity because the “ideal”. I guess it was good that few followed this example or the human race would have died out centuries ago. Hence Paul’s and Augustine’s bare tolerance of sex but only to produce more children. Otherwise it’s a sin. So the church ends up with the somewhat ludicrous portrayal of the “Holy” Family consisting of a virgin wife, an unconsummated marriage, and one child. Joseph had grounds for annulment! The pro- natalists should be appalled by this model of the perfect family.
“Saint” Jerome was one of the more prominent teachers of this sick view of women and sex. Augustine and Aquinas promulgated these distorted views, following the example of Paul. The church continues the legacy by keeping women as second class members of the church whose primary role is to support the men who run the organization. So they bear kids, teach the kids, arrange the flowers,, and take care of “Father”. No woman can even give a homily. These days they might be “ allowed” ( by the men) to even teach theology, but only theology approved by men. They can be fired for even suggesting a different view of women’s roles.
A first century man might have the excuse of sheer ignorance. There is no excuse now for the persistence of these teachings today. But most Catholic women in the pews just continue to take it. If Catholic women all went on strike, the church would collapse. Clearly they long ago went on strike against the contraception teaching.
Divorce can often cause less harm than was done when it was hard to obtain. I say that as a child of divorce. Ideal marriages are rare. But divorce is much more common among those who marry young and who have the least education. Deferred marriage and family formation is the rule now among those with at least college degrees. They have small families, one or two or even no kids. Divorce rates are quite low in this demographic. For too long, women had to stay in abusive marriages because they were shut out from the jobs that provided enough income to support themselves and a family. They were shunned by friends, church, and sometimes by family, although the men usually just carried on.
Most marriages in the early centuries ended after a decade or two, generally due to death. Few marriages lasted for decades because of early mortality. We think of Jesus’s death at 33 as dying young, but in the first century, that was not young. More women than men died then, and through most of history , because of repeated and frequent pregnancy and childbirth. They had no legal rights and were the property of men. Most children didn’t survive to adulthood. Men died of disease and accidents. Marriage was a business deal. Children were needed for survival - to work in the household and family business - weaving, cooking, maybe as farmers or herders. They were social security to care for their parents when old.
This situation was common in poor countries into this century. Maternal mortality was - and still is- extremely high in the poorest countries. Child mortality too. Fortunately most of the poorest countries of the mid 20th century are no longer so poor, due to the opening of world trade and the end of capital controls in the international monetary system. Globalization brought millions out of the worst poverty. Personally, as a Christian and an economist, I think the good that has come from globalization outweighs the bad. The wealth of the richest countries began to spread, lifting all boats.
DeleteDevelopment economists are well acquainted with the reality that as education for women takes hold, contraception made available, access to medical care provided by humanitarian aid, the poorest economies developed and expanded, and birthrates fall dramatically. It becomes a virtuous circle and large families disappear because now children aren’t born for utilitarian reasons but because they are wanted.
Children become wanted for their own sake, not because of the financial assistance they can provide. That’s the pro-natalist mindset now. Money. The US needs labor to keep the system going, including social security in the future. But those now promoting births want a homegrown, white labor force, not brown immigrants. It’s a cold, utilitarian motive that devalues children, and women (their “ highest” vocation is again asserted to be staying home and essentially being broodmares), now being pushed again by “Christians” including Catholics.
"LBTQ+ people are human beings who have the right to live their lives without harassment and persecution. "
DeleteDid Kirk say anything different than that? Sorry, I'm not aware, but I literally had never heard him say anything before he was killed.
Reuters news service has a round-up of stuff Charlie Kirk has said in the influencer sphere. Here ya go: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/charlie-kirks-rhetoric-inspired-supporters-enraged-foes-2025-09-13/
DeleteJust an aside, I can believe that chastity according to one's state in life is a virtue, without signing on to everything that Jerome and Augustine wrote. I can also believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, or at least that she did not have other children than Jesus, for reasons that make sense for me. But that discussion is for another time.
DeleteIt’s a shame that Charlie didn’t live to see it. A young 17yo black woman has just become the youngest person in the US to attain a doctorate. Reputedly, she has an IQ of 199. Must be one of those DEI IQ’s. Oddly, Kirk was friends with Candace Owens, of the cohort of black women which he regularly put down. I guess if you’re to the right, that absolves you of your genetic flaws. Interesting to think that DEI places incompetent blacks in positions while Trump has installed the dumbest extant white people possible into critical positions. In the long run, I don’t care what CK said because he was a creation, a projection, a tool, a fata morgana, a laser pointer spot. He was as close to an AI deep fake as a real person can get. And, even after death, they’re using him to distract away from real problems. Oh, another news flash. Black man on commuter train on Vermont/NYC run handcuffed and taken off by police for sitting while black. He was turned in by a conscientious citizen who just happened to be an elderly white woman for sitting wrong. Turned out he is a writer for a successful show “The Bear. Must be great to have the power to call down the police on anyone you want, especially if they are non-white men. It’s like commanding lightning.
DeleteI know the church’s explanation for the references to Jesus brothers. It’s a stretch, to put it mildly. Once I realized that, and began learning the reasons the church exalts virginity and felt that it had to figure out a way to keep Mary free of “ original sin” I started to put two and two together. I hadn’t known about the views of the early church fathers, nor Augustine’s concept of original sin, and that Eve was the true culprit. He lets Adam off the hook, because Eve was a sexual temptress in his interpretation. I learned almost everything that changed my views of what I was taught by the church from self conducted studies. I had been truly shocked my senior year of high school to learn that most Protestants accepted the Bible’s references to Mary’s other children at face value - as written. They didn’t twist the words to mean relatives or cousins as the RCC does. No Mary, “ever virgin”. They accepted it even though usually also accepting the virgin conception of Jesus. . Their view was that after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph had a normal married sexual relationship that resulted in the births of Jesus’s siblings that are mentioned in the scriptures. As I grew older, and increasingly upset at the church’s misogyny, I started studying the writings of Augustine, early church fathers, Aquinas and the others who laid the foundation for the church’s ancient misogyny as well as it’s distorted teachings about sexuality and about women’s “proper roles”- complementarity. - as defined by male celibates.
DeleteI'm well aware of what Protestants think of our beliefs about Mary. Learned not to talk about that with our Protestant relatives from about kindergarten age. Along with some other stuff.
DeleteBelief that she wasn't just some random ordinary woman predates Jerome and Augustine. But mostly I base what I believe about her having other children on Scripture, or rather what it doesn't say. If there were all these other kids, where were they when she needed them? None of them were there at the foot of the cross when Jesus commended her to the care of John. John was her blood relative, a nephew, so that was somewhat logical, but not if she had other children. James the Less, the "brother of the Lord" is also named as the son of Alpheus, or Cleophas. All of that doesn't prove anything about whether she and Joseph had sex, none of my business, I guess. But if she had other children it would be awfully hard not to favor the one who was the Son of God. Not really fair to them, and no one was claiming descent from Mary that I ever heard of.
Jean, thanks for that Reuters article link. He said some things I never would, and I don't want to defend his words. We can chalk part of it up to his evidently being from a certain strain of Evangelicalism (e.g. one that embraces 'traditional' gender roles). Some of the things he said, like about trans interventions, are probably held by half or more of the country.
DeleteHe certainly crossed some lines in his criticism of DEI.
Most church-goers in the US are conservative, and churches are bastions if whatever flavor of conservatism is ascendant. Used to be Bush's "thousand points of light" volunteerism. I'm for that. But now it's MAGA.
ReplyDeleteCongregants are weaving white Christian nationalist ideas into discussions at coffee hour, at Bible studies, and in programs designed to strengthen traditional gender roles. They're also passing misinformation to each other about chem trails, vaccines, climate change, public school curriculum, and immigrants. And that's just at the local parish in my town.
I doubt most clergy are actively preaching the MAGA line, but they may agree with it. And they are certainly aware that congregants are having these discussions and promulgating MAGA ideas at the lay level.
My guess is that any clergy who find white Christian nationalist ideas alarming are currently pursuing a policy of avoidance: Keep your mouth shut, preach the Gospel, and hope it all goes away. I would not call this tack collusion with white Christian nationalism. But it's certainly a step in that direction.
We’re doomed.
DeleteI don't think most people look to churches as change agents, slavery and abortion bans being exceptions. So I don't think we're doomed bc churches are MAGA-friendly or -tolerant.
DeleteThey have less influence now because 40% of young adults shun organized religion. Most who still self- identify as Christians are inactive except for Christmas and Easter. Secularism may be the only Hope.
DeleteI doubt if secular will fix anything if it just means being locked into social media and having fun. It is quite possible to never go to church and still not care about anything but your amusements. But, yes, the mainline churches aren’t doing their job. They’re all “vegetable lasagna”.
DeleteI don’t equate secular with just amusement. I have known many secular humanists who are in the trenches as activists, volunteers, and working in the low salary non- profits that help the poor, all over the world. Many lawyers who shun highly paid corporate law volunteer as pro- bono lawyers to help the poor. And the studies indicate that the majority of Nones believe in God, pray, and many read the bible. They view organized religion as being dominated by hypocrites.
DeleteI’m just saying that leaving the Church doesn’t equate to becoming a humanist activist. I’ve known atheists in my life and regarding the rest of humanity, they weren’t all that concerned. As a matter of fact, they were politically to the right and pro-capitalist. And, given their basic premises, why would it make a difference? Are there Camus-types out there? I’m sure. I just haven’t personally met any. Maybe it’s because all I met were engineer atheists. Or atheists the way many Christians are Christians, unreflective.
DeleteCertainly leaving church doesn’t automatically mean someone is going to become a social justice warrior. But it’s pretty clear that right now both evangelical religion and white Catholicism are not teaching the gospels - at least not those that form the basis of Catholic social justice teachings. Staying in the church doesn’t seem to improve this situation. It sure didn’t help in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s.
DeleteI just stumbled on a FB discussion of Christian nationalism and learned that yesterday was another predicted date for the Rapture. Came and went - no rapture. They were saying it was too bad it didn’t happen so that we would be rid of these non- christian Christians. One woman said that she was raised a Catholic until her liberal parents finally walked away. She noted that most of their progressive Catholic friends left too - “ pushed out” by the takeover of their parishes by right- wing Catholics. It sounds like Jean’s parish is beyond the point of no return. Some were discussing the likelihood that progressive christian churches would be crushed once white Christian nationalists take over completely. Apparently it’s all laid out in the Project 2025 blueprint and that they are progressing towards their goals faster than they anticipated. I was surprised that people in Jean’s parish, as bad as it had always sounded, are actually discussing this now - with approval?
I don't believe in the Rapture, but if God wants to blow the whistle and bring on the Second Coming, now might be a good time. Of course that's always been true.
Delete"I doubt most clergy are actively preaching the MAGA line, but they may agree with it. And they are certainly aware that congregants are having these discussions and promulgating MAGA ideas at the lay level."
DeleteI've probably said this before: I probably live in a bubble because I just don't see this happening. Maybe the MAGA types in our parish (who must exist - this is Charlie Kirk's stomping ground around here) have decided I'm not an ally / not trustworthy and so steer clear of me. Nor do I see any clergy who are MAGA-sympathetic, but again, maybe I'm not someone they invite to their secret dinner parties or poker games or reddit threads or however they stay in touch.
For myself, it's hard for me to articulate how upset I am about the eroding of Constitutional norms. People who know me, know how I feel about this. But it's not my place to approach the pulpit and pre-empt my preaching of the Gospel to talk about whether a Fed governor may be fired or not, or whether Brendan Carr and Pam Bondi are upholding their oaths to the Constitution.
My wife was telling me about the rapture thing a couple of evenings ago. My brilliant riposte was, "What's the rapture?" She said, "Don't Catholics believe in the rapture?" I told her I don't think we call it that. It's really not a part of my active vocabulary. I do believe Jesus will return some day, but I have no reason to think some megachurch preacher somewhere knows anything more about the timetable and manner of His coming than me or anyone else.
DeleteThe Catholic church in the US isn't really organized or energized to be a mass movement of social change. We're too fat and happy, our leaders' moral authority has diminished, and the Catholic media/social media ecosystem doesn't have much reach or pull. It wasn't always that way in the US, but it is now.
DeleteMost pastors are either too old to be able to get motivated for something like that, or too young to have a clue how to be a pastor. Bishops are a million miles away from the people they serve.
Jim, I don’t think that homilies should be about the Constitutionality of firing a Fed Governor. But the preaching could reflect official Catholic social justice teachings, available for study on the website of the USCCB. Those teachings reflect the gospels. The fact that many Catholics don’t want to hear them because they do not support their personal politics shouldn’t matter. They should be taught ( usually aren’t) and they reflect the gospels so there is no real excuse for priests to ignore them. And if people complain, then they can be told that if they don’t like it, (they want to deport strangers instead of welcoming them, for example,) they should discuss it with Jesus ( examine their consciences and pray) . Told politely of course. .;)
DeleteAbout the Rapture , it is part of "dispensational premilleniarism", and doesn't appear in historic Christianity. It dates to about the 1830s. Not part of Catholicism, but part of some Evangelical belief. I don't know if you remember the " Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye. But the Rapture was part of that whole plot. No I didn't read them. Not that much of a masochist.
DeleteJim said: "For myself, it's hard for me to articulate how upset I am about the eroding of Constitutional norms. People who know me, know how I feel about this. But it's not my place to approach the pulpit and pre-empt my preaching of the Gospel to talk about whether a Fed governor may be fired or not, or whether Brendan Carr and Pam Bondi are upholding their oaths to the Constitution."
DeleteI see what you are saying. Plus I don't want to hear sermons that blame specific individuals for immoral behavior as if the rest of us are so much holier.
But I think you went out on a limb in a recent homily to touch on immigration policies.
So I see nothing wrong with calling out policies that run counter to Scriptural teaching as they are germane to the reading.
"But I think you went out on a limb in a recent homily to touch on immigration policies."
DeleteYes - and as Anne pointed out above, that should be perfectly acceptable.
But my pastor, who is amazingly supportive of me, has let me know that that homily subjected him to angry rants and hateful emails. I got some directly, too. He didn't say, "Don't do it anymore", but left me with the understanding it that he'd rather not have to deal with that kind of fallout.
People want to hear good news. Except maybe for immigrants :-(
Anne wrote, "[Churches] have less influence now because 40% of young adults shun organized religion."
DeleteMy understanding is, they shun everything, including churches. They're not joiners. Aren't they the ones who should be marching in the streets by the hundreds of thousands in defense of the Constitution and separation of powers? By and large, the only ones who get out and protest around here are graybeards and henna-heads.
"People want to hear good news."
DeleteOf course they do. And 5 year olds want ice cream and marshmallows with every meal.
I guess the challenge is knowing when to let people glut themselves on their own dumb ideas and to hope they realize it's making them soul sick, and when to nudge them kindly to re-examine those ideas.
Jim, I'm sorry to hear that you and your pastor were subjected to angry rants and hateful e mails. I'm pretty sure the same thing would happen here. Because people.
DeleteAs the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
Oh, Please. People want to hear good news? Your pastor is afraid to preach the gospel - which, as I recall, means good news? But it’s also challenging news. That’s one problem with the focus on Jesus dying on the cross - incarnating as human to redeem humanity from its sins, letting us off the hook from the wrath of a vengeful God, instead of teaching us that Jesus came to teach us how to live.
DeleteJesus’s life and death taught us that living the gospel might mean some consequences. Not just the good news of free ice cream. Just say a few nice words that aren’t challenging, and remind them to pay their fire insurance - go to mass every Sunday, throw money into the collection, go to confession to make sure that death doesn’t catch you unawares so that you can avoid eternal hellfire. That’s the message.
Your pastor is afraid of speaking the truth. At least he won’t be tortured to death for doing so. He just has to survive a few nasty emails. As I have been saying, the church today is failing just as it did in Germany in the 30s and 40 s. You just gave a perfect example of how it’s failing. Mikquetoast. No Martin Luther Kings these days. No Bonhoeffers. No Dorothy Days. The only passion these struggling young adults are seeing is coming from the extreme right wing. The RCCs powerful teachings on Social Justice are simply being ignored.
The RCC needs a counter to Barron - one who, unlike Barron, doesn’t worship at the temple of MAGA. Failing that, pastors and priests and deacons need to get some courage. Maybe you deacons and priests should get together and binge watch the Wizard of Oz a few times and learn how the Cowardly Lion overcame his fear.
You seem to forget that a lot of college protests were shut down under pressure from the trump administration. The leaders of protests were being arrested. Freedom of speech, intellectual freedom and academic freedom are all being shut down. Trump called out helicopters to buzz protesters during the Black Lives Matter protests. These days the young aren’t motivated to protest out of fear of being drafted and sent into combat which motivated a lot of young people during my era. It wasn’t the lives of immigrants on the line, or starving children in Africa, it was their own.
Trying to draw a comparison between the Nones shunning organized religion and not joining bowling leagues is more than a bit of a stretch. Once again , a member of the professional religious ranks of the church is blaming the young for leaving a dying institution to look for a way to be spiritually fed, and, hopefully, challenged instead of looking in a mirror and asking themselves how they are failing.
The churches aren’t doing their job. The young adults find other ways to live a spiritual life. But privately. Unfortunately that means there is no religious leadership who can inspire them with the gospels. The parishes all over the eastern half of the US load up buses full of students and prisoners to drive to DC every January ( the students have no choice). But no similar effort is made to organize Catholics to oppose inhumane immigration policies. To protest the cut off of humanitarian aid. Catholic organizations that were in the forefront of helping the world’s poor were cut off and the bishops barely made a whisper of protest. Why don’t they organize parish buses to come to DC to protest the unnecessary deaths of born people as they do to protest the deaths of embryos?
Priests, not prisoners. Unless some of the students are prisoners?
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DeleteI’m sorry for getting on my soapbox again. I basically am exhausted from caregiving, even with help, and sick of reading the news every day. The canonization of Kirk as hero and martyr pushed my frustration over the top. He was a right wing evangelical who pushed bigotry. He ( a junior college dropout) didn’t just demean accomplished African American women, African Americans in general ( afraid when seeing his pilot that the guy was only a pilot because of DEI), anyone who isn’t heterosexual, he also insulted Pope Francis, and criticized Pope Leo. A lot of his ideas were offensive. He had a right to say them - free speech for him at least. But I’m not aware of a single Catholic leader who dared suggest this man was not preaching the gospels. He drew in a lot of floundering young men with a combination of charisma and encouraging them to believe that they are victims. He didn’t challenge them to live the gospels. But the religious leaders aren’t either. And that’s their job.
DeleteIn the meantime the Christian nationalists are making huge gains, the nation is sinking into authoritarianism, and Catholic leaders barely say a word except for a couple of bishops who are accompanying the immigrants. And then I read about how the priests dare not say a word because the people in the pews don’t want to hear it and send nasty emails.
Wow. Jesus weeps. I’ll go away now until I regain my equilibrium.
Kirk was bankrolled by his rich dad and a couple of millionaires to run his mouth to galvanize white Christian MAGA men and preach white male privilege. Now that Kirk's funeral is over, Trump will move on to other venues where he can brag in front of lots of people, and his interest in Charlie Kirk's will fade. In fact, Trump has already moved on, to the UN General Assembly. Don't watch that performance if you're trying to detox off life's frustrations.
DeleteRaber's much younger brother died yesterday as expected. Prayers for his soul and especially for his wife are appreciated. She has some daunting obstacles ahead as a widow. Maybe we need a standing monthly thread for prayer requests. I always hate interrupting the convo to ask for prayers.
ReplyDeleteMay perpetual light shine upon him! Sending prayers for him and his wife.
DeleteIt's always okay to ask for prayers, whenever they are needed. I don't consider that an interruption.
Yes. Me, too. I’ll remember to pray at mass as well as now.
DeleteThank you, all.
DeleteSo sorry, and please extend sympathies to Raber, too. Prayers ascending.
DeletePrayers ascending. We are an aging group, and so our friends and family are too. The losses come more frequently, but it doesn’t make them any easier. Are there also children still in the home?
ReplyDeleteJim Pauwels: "The sacrament of marriage transformed the animal urges most of us have into something holy."
ReplyDeleteI think this statement needs work. Do all those who are not in sacramental marriages still have unholy animal urges?
I have never understood the idea of marriage being "raised to the dignity of a sacrament." (By the way, marriage was formally recognized by the Catholic Church as a sacrament in the 13th century.) In any case, it's clear that within Judaism and Christianity, marriage was always considered something God-given. For example, from Mark 10:
"But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”
Jim Pauwels: "It shouldn't be surprising that he had many admirers among Evangelicals and Catholics. He was articulating boilerplate, traditional Christian beliefs. Apparently, he had the nerve to say them out loud."
ReplyDeleteDo you really believe Charlie Kirk's popularity was based on his alleged "nerve" to articulate Christian boilerplate out loud?
I think he was popular (in part) because he was an "us versus them" provocateur.And I don't see how his racism can be denied. Don't most Catholic bishops articulate Christian boilerplate? Even the "gay friendly" Pope Francis stuck with Christian boilerplate.
I think you are right about the provocateur part. Also the racism part. I read what he said about black women, including Michelle Obama and SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, that they didn't have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. And it went downhill from there.
DeleteDavid, I suspect also that he was popular with a type of young man (those he gets credit for luring into the trump camp) for reasons similar to the attraction Jordan Peterson has for the “lost boys”. He put down women, especially black women. Kirk preached traditional gender roles, advocating for wife pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen as God’s plan. They shouldn’t be out there having careers and taking away good jobs from men. These poor men are being discriminated against. This was especially true if the women who get good jobs are black, because of course they couldn’t be chosen because of their education, experience and talent, but because of DEI. Poor men. They are victims - of minorities, of women, and of immigrants stealing their jobs, assuming that these college kids really wanted to work on landscaping crews or pick strawberries and some immigrant got preference.
Delete"Do you really believe Charlie Kirk's popularity was based on his alleged "nerve" to articulate Christian boilerplate out loud?"
DeleteFrom what I'm reading and seeing, I think it was some combination of traditional Christianity (in an Evangelical frame) and populist/nationalist politics. And yes, some of that was Christian boilerplate.
Yes, standard evangelical boilerplate. But he was not exactly the first to say it out loud. America has been deluged with people from politicians to mega church pastors, pushing this version of Christianity - some of which Jesus might not agree has anything to do with his own teachings.
DeleteRe Rapture: Catholics believe in the Second Coming, no? The Rapture is just a version of that heavily embroidered with imagery from Revelation + a kind of Fundiegelical revenge tour includes grisly punishments for everyone not them.
ReplyDeleteYeah we believe in the Second Coming. But it's pretty light on specifics. Fan fiction has a lot of ideas about it.
DeleteAnd there’s nothing about countries jumpstarting it. As Captain Kirk said to the being that claimed to be God in Star Trek V, “Why would God need a starship?”
DeleteWill the American church hinder or help trump’s authoritarian moves?
ReplyDeleteTwo items for thought. A letter at NCRonline and an article in Commonweal
Church and fascism
The Catholic Church has produced many fascist heads of state around the world. For years the "largest regular neo-Nazi rally" in Europe was a Catholic mass in Carinthia, Austria. One of the largest fascist rallies in Europe since the defeat of the Third Reich occurred in Catholic Poland on November 11, 2017. I mention those facts only to say that Dolan is nothing special (NCR, Sept. 19, 2025).
Last year Gianfranco Maria Chiti, who fought and killed for Mussolini's fascist republic and never repented of having done so, was proclaimed a Venerable Servant of God. How's that for a modern day St. Paul?
A fascist monument stood proudly in St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania for over two decades and was only removed a couple of years ago. Metropolitan Gudziak did not remove the monument because of the incompatibility of fascism with our faith, but because of complaints from Philadelphia's rightly offended Jewish community.
JEFFREY JONES
Hamburg, New York
From commonweal
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/massimo-european-catholicism-leo-germany-austria-church?utm_source=Main+Reader+List&utm_campaign=d4015aeddb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_16_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_407bf353a2-d4015aeddb-544529510